Federal grand jury investigating January 6 sets sights on Trump’s Save America PAC
Kristen Holmes Pamela Brown Annie Grayer
By Kristen Holmes, Gabby Orr, Pamela Brown and Annie Grayer, CNN
Published 5:23 PM EDT, Thu September 8, 2022
Fairgrounds on June 25, 2022 in Mendon, Illinois.
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CNN —
A federal grand jury is examining one of former President Donald Trump’s main political and fundraising vehicles, the Save America leadership PAC, in an expansion of the criminal investigation into the events surrounding the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021.
Federal prosecutors issued several subpoenas to former Trump administration officials, former campaign and communications aides and people currently advising Trump or Save America. William Russell, a senior adviser to Trump, was the recipient of one of the subpoenas on Wednesday.
According to multiple sources familiar with the subpoenas, which were issued by a grand jury in Washington, DC, the Justice Department is seeking information related to the formation, fundraising and expenditures of Save America, which has amassed more than $100 million in contributions since it was formed in November 2020.
According to one source familiar with the language in the subpoenas, investigators may be looking into whether people associated with the Save America PAC defrauded people out of money using claims they knew to be false about the 2020 election being stolen.
Some of the subpoenas also requested any information that recipients previously turned over to the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot and communications recipients may have had with a broad list of people who worked to overturn the 2020 election results – including former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Victoria Toensing and Boris Epshteyn, an adviser to Trump’s 2020 campaign, among others. According to two subpoenas described to CNN, that included communications with a list of people from various states.
The DOJ’s investigation, already the largest in the department’s history, has expanded beyond the hundreds of rioters charged in connection with their actions that day. More recently, investigators have looked at efforts by Trump and allies to overturn the 2020 election results, including efforts to put forth slates of fake electors.
Separately, the House committee dedicated an entire investigative team to examine the fundraising efforts by the Trump campaign after the 2020 election. And during a hearing in June, the committee tried to make the case that the Trump campaign raised funds by falsely claiming the election was stolen, even though they knew it wasn’t, and that the funds may have been misused.
“Throughout the committee’s investigation, we found evidence that the Trump campaign and its surrogates misled donors as to where their funds would go and what they would be used for,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat on the committee, said during the hearing. “So, not only was there the big lie, there was the big rip-off. Donors deserve to know where their funds are really going. They deserve better than what President Trump and his team did.”
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https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/08/politics/trump-save-america-pac-federal-grand-jury-january-6/index.html
